Chase
Masculine · Old French roots · “hunt”
Chase is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 181,160 boys against 3,798 girls since 1880. See Chase as a girl name
Chase began as a word for the hunt itself — and for the stretch of open ground where hunting was done, as in the medieval English ballad of Chevy Chase. From Anglo-Norman speech it became an English surname, then crossed into first-name use in the American habit of turning family names into given ones. One syllable, one sound, and no one has to ask how it is spelled.
How old is the name Chase?
Chase first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Chase alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 178,000 people named Chase are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Chase most popular?
Chase peaked in 2009, reaching #61 nationally. Today it ranks #192, 131 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Where it comes from
From chacier (Old French) to Chase
The story of Chase
The root is Old French chacier, 'to hunt', carried into England after the Norman Conquest and worn down into Middle English chace. In medieval England a chase was also a place: unfenced hunting land held by a lord, a word still sitting in English place names like Cannock Chase and Chevy Chase, the latter familiar from the fifteenth-century border ballad. From the occupation came the surname, borne by English families and then by American ones. The move from surname to given name is a thoroughly American one, part of the long practice of promoting family names to the front — and Chase settled there comfortably, since it was already a plain English word anyone could read at a glance.
Meaning
hunt, or hunting ground
From Old French chacier, 'to hunt', which gave Middle English chace — both the pursuit and the enclosed land set aside for it. As a surname it marked a huntsman.
How the name formed
- chacierOld French
- chaceMiddle English
- ChaseEnglish surname
- Chasegiven name
Pronouncing Chase
CHAYSS
One syllable, ending in a clean s sound rather than a z. Spelling and sound match, in English and for most English-speaking countries.
Nicknames for Chase
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1885
- Most boys named
- 20087,003 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #61reached in 2009
- Change vs 2023
- −20.3%1,904 in 2025, from 2,389
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Chase in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Pennsylvania.
Chases among us
people named Chase are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 897 born in 2025 was named Chase
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Barry test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Chase's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Barry climbed just as high around 1962, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Barry's path sketches the road Chase is walking now.
Chase is coming down from a big peak (#61 in 2009). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Chase is headed
Chase is easing off slowly — about 16% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Chase beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Chase in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, spelled exactly as it sounds — almost never misspelled or mispronounced by an English speaker.
- A documented English surname with a traceable line back to Old French, so the history is real rather than guessed.
- Reads clearly as a given name in the US while still working like a surname, which pairs easily with most last names.
- Sits in the well-worn American tradition of surname-first names, so it needs no explaining.
- It is also an everyday English verb, so the name will meet puns and playground jokes — cut to the chase, chasing after. Most bearers grow used to it early.
- In the US the word is bound up with one of the country's largest banks, which means the name shares its spelling with a brand seen on nearly every high street.
- There is little to shorten. Chase is already as short as it gets, so a child who wants a nickname will have to invent one.
- It rose with a distinctly modern wave of surname names and is now easing back from that high point, which gives it a recognizable era — familiar, but not the everywhere-name it once was.
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Chase
Masculine · Old French roots · #192 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Chases are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 178,000 people named Chase are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Chase in 2025?
- Chase ranks #192 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,904 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Chase?
- About 1 in every 897 US boys born in 2025 was named Chase — 1,904 in all.
- Will my child share the name Chase with classmates?
- Chase will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Chase
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Legend#193 · Alan#191 · Tate#193 · Callan#190 · Alejandro#195 · Maxwell#189 · Rhett#188 · Knox#196
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Chase? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Chase and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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